A merchant offers a large group of items at $30\%$ off.  Later, the merchant takes $20\%$ off these sale prices and claims that the final price of these items is $50\%$ off the original price.  As a percentage of the original price, what is the difference between the true discount and the merchant's claimed discount? (Your answer should be a positive difference.)
The first discount means that the customer will pay $70\%$ of the original price.  The second discount means a selling price of $80\%$ of  the discounted price.  Because $0.80(0.70) = 0.56 = 56\% $, the customer pays $56\%$ of the original price and thus receives a $44\%$ discount, for a difference of $50\% - 44\% = \boxed{6\%}$.